Jane Welsh Carlyle
Jane Welsh Carlyle (14 July 1801 - 21 April 1866) was a Scotish poet and prose writer, the wife of essayist Thomas Carlyle. Life Carlyle was born Jane Baillie Welsh on the High Street in Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland, the only child of Dr John and Grace Welsh. She attended school in the town, and despite her frail health was said to have been a tomboy. When she was 10, her father engaged Edward Irving, master of the Mathematics School, to help improve her education. By age 14 she had already written a novel and a 5-act tragedy.Jane Welsh Carlyle (1801-66), John Gray Centre. Web, Feb. 2, 2017. When she was 16, she moved to Edinburgh, where she would continue to improve her education. She suffered a huge loss when her father died in September of 1819. Marriage to Thomas Carlyle Jane was introduced to Carlyle, then an unknown writer, by her tutor Edward Irving, in 1821. They married at Templand on 17 October 1826, living in Edinburgh and then Craigenputtoch, and moving to London in 1834. The marriage was often unhappy. Thomas was always busy writing and Jane remained dutiful in doing the housework. Their voluminous correspondence has been published, and the letters show that the couple's affection for each other was marred by frequent quarrels. Samuel Butler once wrote: "It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs Carlyle marry one another, and so make only two people miserable and not four". Carlyle's biographer James Anthony Froude posthumously published his opinion that the marriage remained unconsummated.Froude, J.A. (1903). [https://archive.org/stream/myrelationswith00stepgoog#page/n8/mode/2up My Relations With Carlyle]. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1829]] Historian Paul Johnson notes in Creators that she not only irked her husband but made prickly comments about others, such as fellow female writer George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), of whom she said: "She looks Propriety personified. Oh, so slow!" Jane was also jealous of a friendship her husband had with the socialite and hostess Lady Harriet Mary Montagu (later Lady Ashburton). The friendship was non-sexual yet they still spent a lot of time together. Jane expressed her jealousy and anger in a letter dated in 1856. Relationship with Geraldine Jewsbury Jane had a long lasting relationship (1840-1866) with fellow writer Geraldine Jewsbury. The two women first met when Thomas invited Geraldine to Cheyne Row, where Thomas and Jane lived. Geraldine had written to Thomas prior to the invitation admiring his work and also expressing her religious doubt. Geraldine was going through a depressive time, but she also contacted Thomas in the hopes of entering the literary realm in England. When Geraldine and Jane met, their friendship turned out to be more of a romantic relationship. It is evident both women had feelings for each other, but there is no evidence of them being lesbian lovers. Jane always remained dutiful to her husband and neither had acted upon any romantic feelings. This caused a lot of jealousy between the two women as Jane always remained married to Thomas and Geraldine had lovers of her own. However, they both had passionate feelings towards one another and that passion in expressed in their many letters to one another. They often had disagreements about common social issues of the era such as the place of men in women's lives and the purpose of women in general. Geraldine wasn't opposed to marriage, but she thought man and woman should be equal in marriage; she didn't witness that with Jane and Thomas. Jane often tried to set up Geraldine with suitable bachelors in London. However, none of them stuck (Geraldine never married). When they were on good terms, Jane helped Geraldine with many of her literary works. Jane helped edit two of Geraldine's most popular novels, Zoe: the History of Two Lives and The Half Sisters. Jane was often burdened with the work, however, and also showed some jealousy over Geraldine's literary success. She had trouble accepting how sociable Geraldine was and how many more friends she had as well. In 1857 Geraldine became romantically involved with Walter Mantell. The two women became very distant from one another and when they did write letters to each other, they were fighting. Towards the end of her life Jane was very ill. Geraldine would spend time taking care of her friend and liked feeling needed by her. When Jane was feeling better, however, she would turn to Thomas instead. Geraldine was often jealous of that fact. These two women had a very interesting relationship from a romantic, literary, and friendly perspective. Virginia Woolf based an article in the Times Literary Supplement on Geraldine's letters to Jane Carlyle. Their passionate relationship was recognized among their literary peers despite the ups and downs of their friendship. Works Thomas published his highly self-critical "Reminiscences of Jane Welsh Carlyle" out of guilt after he read her diary posthumously. The Scottish philosopher David George Ritchie, a friend of the Carlyle family, published a volume of her letters in 1889 under the title The Early Letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle. In 1973, American scholar G. B. Tennyson described her as "one of the rare Victorian wives who are of literary interest in their own right...to be remembered as one of the great letter writers (in some respects her husband’s superior) of the nineteenth century is glory beyond the dreams of avarice." Otherwise, Jane didn't act upon her literary talent. She was once thought to have written Jane Eyre, but she never went so far as to even co-author a novel with Geraldine. Recognition A plaque to Jane stands on the west side of George Square in Edinburgh. Publications Letters *''Letters and Memorials'' (edited by James Anthony Froude). (3 volumes), London: Longmans Green, 1883; New York: Scribner, 1883; Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011. *''New Letters and Memorials'' (edited by Alexander Carlyle). London & New York: John Lane, 1903. *''Letters to Her Family, 1839-1863''. London: John Murray, 1924. *''A New Selection of Her Letters'' (edited by Trudy Bliss). London: Gollanca, 1950; New York: Macmillan, 1950. *''I Too Am Here: Selections from the letters''. Cambridge, UK, & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Jane Welsh Carlyle, WorldCat OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Feb. 2, 2017. References * * Ashton, Rosemary (2001). Thomas and Jane Carlyle: Portrait of a Marriage. London: Chatto & Windus. * Bourne, H.R. Fox (1882). "Carlyle and His Wife," The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. CCLII, pp. 685–705. * Brown, Francis (1910). "Miss Martineau and the Carlyles," The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. CVI, pp. 381–387. * Collis, John Stewart (1971). The Carlyles: A Biography of Thomas and Jane Carlyle. London: Sidgwick & Jackson. * Drew, Elizabeth A. (1928). Jane Welsh and Jane Carlyle. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company. * Fielding, K. J.; David R. Sorensen & Rodger L. Tarr (2004). The Carlyles at Home and Abroad. Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate Pub. * Hanson, Lawrence & Elisabeth Hanson (1952). Necessary Evil; the Life of Jane Welsh Carlyle. London: Constable. * Ireland, Annie E. (1888). "George Eliot and Jane Welsh Carlyle," The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. CCLXIV, pp. 229–238. * Ireland, Annie E. (1891). [http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89001946870;view=1up;seq=11 Life of Jane Welsh Carlyle]. New York: C.L. Webster & Co. * Morrison, Nancy Brysson (1974). True Minds: The Marriage of Thomas and Jane Carlyle. London: J.M. Dent & Sons. * Oliphant, Margaret (1883). "Mrs. Carlyle," The Contemporary Review, Vol. XLIII, pp. 609–628. * Scudder, Townsend (1939). Jane Welsh Carlyle. New York: The Macmillan Company. * Surtees, Virginia (1986). Jane Welsh Carlyle. Salisbury, Wiltshire: Michael Russell. Notes External links ;Poems *Jane Carlyle in A Victorian Anthology: "To a Swallow Building under Our Eaves" ;About *Biography, Gazetteer for Scotland *Jane Welsh Carlyle (1801-66) at the John Gray Centre *Carlyle, Marriage and Biography at Today in Literature ;Etc. *The letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle and Thomas Carlyle *Thomas & Jane Carlyle's Craigenputtock *London: Literary lodging that's pickled in aspic," The Telegraph Category:Existentialists Category:Scottish letter writers Category:Scottish women writers Category:1801 births Category:1866 deaths Category:Thomas Carlyle Category:People from Haddington, East Lothian Category:19th-century women writers